Arts and the city: Le Voyage à Nantes

Right now Kati and I are in Nantes, while the city’s art project “Le Voyage à Nantes“ takes place until August 20th. That’s why we see a lot of very cool installation here in the city. Those four pictures show you just some examples of what I am talking about:

Esplanade Carré Feydau: “Feydball“ by Barré-Lambot architects

Voyage à Nantes: Feydball (Image: Tobias Schwarz, CC BY 4.0)

The Nantes based architects Agnés Lambot and Philippe Barré collaborated with lanscape designer Guillaume Sevin to create “Feydball“ (the name combining the Feydau neighbourhood with football). As you can see, the goalposts are not adequately shaped and it seems to be a quite unusual field to play football, but the audience on the left side of the field can see everything in the mirror on the right side like it’s a normal field, while the players and the ball are deformed. The mirror is warped so that the field and goalposts are remain normal. It’s pretty cool and we saw some photos of school kids actually playing football on the field.

Cours Cambronne: “Terre En Chantier“ by Aymeric Caulay

Voyage à Nantes: Terre En Chantier (Image: Tobias Schwarz, CC BY 4.0)

Aymeric Caulay’s sculpture of a lithic digger names “Terre En Chantier“ seems to be out of place in such a nice park where everything is perfect as it is. The Cours Cambronne is one of the nicest spots in Nantes and that’s why it is also a place where an artist would like to create something new. And Caulay’s digger is remarkable because it’s made of bricks and cement. A very massive art work that looks like a toy. Aymeric Cauly seems to be kind of a Nantes wunderkind, he is described as “Fresh out of the École des Beaux-Arts de Brest as well as the post-graduate program headed by the artist Fabrice Hyber at the École des Beaux-Arts de Nantes and the École de Management Audencia“.

Place du Bouffay: “Stellar“ by Baptiste Debombourg

Voyage à Nantes: Stellar (Image: Tobias Schwarz, CC BY 4.0)

Hundreds of colorful café chairs take the form of a winding roller coaster named “Stellar“ in the middle of Nantes. The installation by Baptiste Debombourg is located within the Place Du Bouffay and shows impressively how Debombourg’s work takes the real world and morphs it into something new. On the “Le Voyage à Nantes“ website they wrote about this art work: “It is only natural that Baptiste Debombourg designed his project after observing the Place du Bouffay and the great presence of outdoor cafés and restaurants. An outdoor patio is synonymous with socializing. The chair composing it can be seen as representative of a person. The artist decided to play with this presence by creating a large aerial sculpture that contradicts the gravity of everyone anchored to the ground. In a dialogue with the volume of the public square and the height of the buildings, two ellipses of chairs rise up into the air, meet, and then separate.“